Washington Navy Yard shooting: the silent gunmen who spread death in US Navy base

The gunman said nothing as he faced Terrie Durham in the hallway outside her
office in the Washington Navy Yard’s Building 197.

Aaron Alexis, indentified by the FBI as the man believed to be responsible for the shootings at the Washington Navy YardPhoto: FBI

By Peter Foster, Raf Sanchez and David Lawler in Washington

10:10PM BST 16 Sep 2013

The executive assistant, still thinking the office complex was being evacuated because of a fire, watched as the tall man in the blue fatigues levelled his rifle.

“It wasn’t until he fired that I realised he was shooting at us, that he was trying to kill us,” Mrs Durham told The Telegraph.

The shot announced yet another mass shooting in America, this time in one of the US Navy’s largest facilities less than three miles from the White House, where President Barack Obama was just preparing to receive his morning briefing.

Navy Yard workers evacuated after the shooting are reunited with loved ones at a makeshift Red Cross shelter near the naval installation in Washington. (JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS)

As Homeland Security officials gave Mr Obama the first of several updates, units from the local police, FBI and tactical “active shooter” Swat teams were scrambled to the scene, arriving within seven minutes to surround the sprawling compound which sits on the banks of Washington’s Anacostia river.

The labyrinthine complex, containing hundreds of rooms and miles of corridors, presented police and tactical teams with a huge challenge as they tracked as many as three reported gunmen.

Witnesses said the gunmen, one of whom was named by the FBI as 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, worked their way through the hallways firing apparently at random as uniformed personnel and their civilian colleagues ran for their lives.

A man comforts a friend following the shooting. (JONATHAN ERNST/REUTERS)

Cdr Tim Jirus, said he was standing in a back alley when a maintenance worker rushed up to him asking for news.

“I said I heard some things earlier, I don’t know if they were gun shots,” Cdr Jirus told the American broadcaster NBC. “And then I heard two more gunshots and it hit the guy next to me and not me.”

Washington police said before midday that one gunman was “down” later confirming that he was dead. But in a sign of how fluid the situation was, police at first thought two more gunmen were at large. Cathy Lanier, the police chief for the District of Columbia, later said possibly one more gunman was still being sought.

People come out from a building with their hands up after the shooting at the Washington Navy Yard. (GETTY IMAGES)

One of the officers first on the scene was shot, she said in a brief address to reporters.

The suspected lone gunman still on the loose was dressed in military-style fatigues but, was not believed to be a member of the US military.

The intruder was described as a “black male, approximately 50”.

All through the morning, the casualty count mounted, with initial reports saying 10 people were shot, with four killed.

Police would only confirm a single fatality but added that there were “multiple” casualties still inside the compound.

By midday the preliminary death toll had risen to seven dead and five more injured. Then two hours later it rose again — this time to 12.

Several hours after the shooting, Mrs Durham and other staff from the third floor office of the Navy Sea Systems Command’s Team ship, waited in a nearby building to be interviewed by the FBI.

They watched in silence and clutched paper coffee cups as the television news replayed footage of the building they had just fled, now surrounded by heavily-armed police and circled by helicopters.

Mrs Durham described the gunman she faced in the hallway as “dark-skinned” and carrying a rifle.

“He said nothing and he looked like he was in blue fatigues like the ones that some Navy personnel wear,” the 56-year-old said.

“It wasn’t until I saw the shot hit the wall in the hallway that I realised what was happening. It’s so hard to believe when we work in a secure facility that something like this could happen.”

Another witness, Capt Michael Graham, a 28-year-veteran of the Navy who had been briefed by a colleague, said he saw a “tall olive-skinned male wearing fatigues, but it did not look like a US military uniform. He was carrying an M16 like weapon”.

Armed officers are dropped onto the roof of one of the biuildings in the complex. (REUTERS)

As police continued to search the buildings, outside the gates some of the 3,000 employees told how they escaped, fleeing for their lives as a gunman reached the fourth floor of the building that houses the Naval Sea Systems Command Headquarters, which supports the US surface fleet.

Todd Brundidge, an executive assistant, was with Mrs Durham as they ducked into stairwell to avoid the gunman.

“There was a tall black guy who stepped around the corner maybe 20 yards from us with a gun in his hand,” Mr Brundidge said. “He pointed the gun our way and started shooting.”

The gunman said nothing as he fired down the hall. “I feel really lucky because if it had been two or three seconds later he could have been up right up on us. I’m just lucky to be here,” he said. “Everybody was pushing and shoving and screaming 'Oh my God, there’s a shooter, there’s a shooter’, as they ran down the stairs. We didn’t know if the guy was coming down behind us.”

As they left the building, staff found a gate was closed. Some climbed over a 7ft brick wall as they tried to get away from Building 197.

“You see these things on the news every day and you just never know when it’s going to happen in your work area,” Mr Brundidge said. “I don’t know who the shooters are, you just don’t know what’s going to make the next person snap.”

Staff are not allowed to carry personal mobile phones inside the Naval facility and Mrs Durham had to borrow a friend’s government-issued BlackBerry to tell her husband she was uninjured.

In a nearby office building grim-faced Navy officials carried staff lists, trying to account for the missing.

Within minutes of confirmation that gunmen were on the rampage, all flights were grounded from the nearby Reagan National Airport that sits across the Anacostia River from the Pentagon. About 12 local schools were in lockdown.

Emergency services at the scene. (SAUL LOEB/AFP)

Almost immediately questions were being raised over how possibly two armed men, who were apparently not military personnel, had penetrated a US Naval installation which workers said had “airport-style” levels of security.

Capt Graham said employees were all required to show a pass to enter the building, which would allow staff only as far as the lobby of Building 197 where they would have to pass through a guard station. Few of the people on the base had guns, he said. Those armed were either security guards or police officers.

All morning helicopters clattered overhead, some with snipers sweeping the compound below.

Three critical casualties were flown to the Washington Hospital Centre where they were treated for gunshot wounds to the head, hands, legs and shoulders.

“All three are in a critical condition,” said Janis Orlowski, the hospital’s Chief Medical Officer three hours after the first shots were fired, but all those who had come in were “alert”. The police officer had “multiple gunshot wounds to his legs”. He was already in surgery, she said.

The second casualty was a civilian woman who was “shot in the shoulder”. A third, also a civilian woman, had “a gunshot wound to the head and hand.”

“From the reports of the victims it had to be a semi-automatic because they are talking about gunshots that they heard in rapid succession,” she said. “I would say their chances for survival are very good. We are pretty darn experienced at this.”